Penance
by RuanaRulane
Summary: Lyrium isn't the only poison Cullen needs to get out of his system.
1. The Canticle of Transfigurations

"O Maker, hear my cry."

Cullen was shivering. He didn't try to figure out whether it was just the cold, or withdrawal as well. The question had become interesting about three days before, but only for a few minutes.

"Guide me through the blackest nights."

His knee was sore from kneeling. _Everything_ was sore, but his knee was getting his attention. A few stanzas ago it had been his tightly-clasped hands. Now he was back to his knee.

And the damned voices had started up again.

"Steel my heart against the temptations of the wicked. "

 _This is not a negotiation, Cullen, or a punishment. It's on your face every time you have to walk into that room. You need to get away from this tower._

He tried to keep his focus on the candle flame and the Chant. It wasn't working.

"Make me to rest in the warmest places."

What a joke that was right now. To be fair, he could have holed up in a room with a fireplace, to pray, shake, hallucinate and scream – occasionally – in peace. The war had torn through this Circle with the brutal indifference of a winter storm, and when Seeker Pentaghast had claimed squatter's rights for her band there had been no-one to argue except various vermin.

But he hadn't taken a room upstairs. He'd come down to the windowless punishment cell instead.

 _Please, messere, no!_

"O Creator, see me kneel."

They'd put people in here. _He'd_ put people in places like this. Children, some of them. He'd always said he was doing his duty, that he took no pleasure in it...

 _You know the last thing Orsino said? "Why not just drown us as infants?"_

"For I walk only where You would bid me."

 _It wasn't about power, Cullen. It was about despair. A prison full of humans and elves buried alive with no hope of it getting any better – how could you possibly expect it to end any other way?_

For six years he'd struggled to reconcile so many things. The teachings of the Chantry, Meredith's increasing paranoia, the real threat of corruption, the brutal sadism of some of the other templars – his own terror and rage and his complete inability to stop seeing mages as people.

"Stand only in places You have blessed."

 _Yes, Alrik, I was at the Ferelden Circle. Thanks for the reminder. I still say this Tranquil Solution of yours is too much. Now leave me alone._

Could he really have changed anything?

"Sing only the words You place in my throat."

What if he'd stood up to Meredith sooner? Conversely, done a better job of hunting down Anders? Maybe he could have stopped it before it began. Or maybe he could have got himself blown to bits in Darktown, or shipped off somewhere else.

 _Maybes enough to fill half the graves in Kirkwall..._

She'd been right about that, at least.

"My Maker, know my heart:"

 _My own Knight-Captain falls prey to the influence of blood magic._

How... _hurt_ she'd looked.

 _Idiot boy!_

 _And what was it all for, Cullen? What did you achieve?_

"Take from me a life of sorrow."

 _Can you say you've saved a single life, in Ferelden or Kirkwall? Can you?_

Well, this was new. Meredith had never stepped out of his memories and started berating him before.

"Lift me from a world of pain."

 _Years, Anders was running around Kirkwall – and where were you? Polishing your armour and waiting for me to do everything myself, while the true men like Karras and Alrik died in the line of duty._

That wasn't right. But he still had his head together, enough to not go arguing with a figment of his imagination. He forced his thoughts back to the Chant.

"Judge me worthy..."

 _Yes, beg Him for that – nobody else will, believe me._

She was _there_ , just outside his sight; if his gaze wavered from the flame it would meet hers, red as blood and fire.

"Judge me worthy of Your endless pride."

Roars and screams. The smell of flesh roasting inside armour.

 _Pride. That was always your problem, Cullen. Too good to stay with your family, oh yes, the world needed you to put it to rights. And how did that work out?_

"My Creator..."

Caged and helpless, a plaything for demons; beginning to hope that lack of water would kill him before his will buckled.

 _You were their eldest son. You should have been there to look after them, not off in a Circle doing no good at all!_

"Judge – judge me whole."

 _You failed your family, you failed me and you failed everybody else._

A heartbeat of sheer disbelief as the thing wearing Wilmod's body dropped its masquerade.

"Find – find me..."

 _You think this time's going to be any different? You think you can make up for the past?_

"Find me well within..."

 _You're going to fail again. Even more people dead because of you._

"Within your grace."

 _You dare speak to Him? You don't deserve Him to listen – you don't deserve_ anyone _to listen._

"TouchmewithfirethatIbecleansed."

 _You shouldn't leave this room._

"Tell me..."

 _Ever._

"Tell me..."

 _Tell the Seeker to wall the door up and let you die down here._

"Tell me I..."

 _You won't hurt anyone else. You won't be hurting any more either, not that anybody cares about that._

"Tell me I..." He couldn't get the words out.

 _Better for everyone._

"No."

 _Wouldn't you say?_

He clapped his hands over his ears, squeezed his eyes shut.

 _This is where you finally stop running from your responsibilities._

The sobs tore their way out of the very centre of his being, every one wracking his lyrium-deprived body with agony.

But at least they finally drowned her out.

* * *

 **I don't own Dragon Age**


	2. Something Right

He struggled free from a nightmare about being chased through the Gallows by Meredith and a selection of demons - he'd had worse - to find himself with a piercing headache, a sore throat and the all-over pain to which he was becoming all too accustomed. He stared at the flickering candlelight on the ceiling, wanting lyrium, weighing his more ordinary thirst against the knowledge that moving would mean more pain.

He was lying on the straw mattress against the back wall. He'd never once gone to sleep - more accurately, passed out - on the thing, but he kept waking up on it. There was a reason for this; and having steeled himself for the renewed temple-stab that came with turning his head, he saw that said reason was still in the room.

Seeker Pentaghast, seeing him awake, leaned over to push a flask to within easy reach, then returned to her previous bolt-upright position, cross-legged on the other side of the candlestick. The candle was burning low, but burning nonetheless; he hadn't been out all that long.

He found to his relief that the act of sitting up didn't make his muscles scream quite as badly as he feared; and once he was upright the headache receded somewhat. Each sip of water was an inexpressible luxury.

Every fibre of his being still complained that they didn't have enough lyrium in them. He was learning to ignore them.

When he stoppered the flask, set it down and leaned his head back against the wall, the Seeker raised her gaze from the candle and asked, "How far did you get this time?"

"Made it all the way to Andraste's Prayer before the siege of Minrathous. Nearly finished it, too."

"So is the withdrawal getting better, or are you just getting better at reciting the Canticle of Transfigurations whilst suffering from withdrawal?"

"A bit of both, I think. What day is it?"

"Seven."

The mental arithmetic was automatic. Twenty days since he'd stopped. Seven since the symptoms had become serious and he'd shut himself away.

"How are things out there?"

"Mages and templars are still killing each other, innocent people are still caught in the middle, and the Divine is still trying to arrange peace talks. I just got word from Sister Nightingale that the last of our people should arrive within another week."

"You've got better things to do than come down here."

"Someone has to."

She was giving him what he thought of as the Seeker Stare, the one that made him feel as if his inmost thoughts were tattooed all over his skin. And there on his forearm, the words _Bad enough just one person seeing me in this state._ He actually caught himself tugging his sleeve down. She wouldn't give the job to anyone else, not while she knew he didn't really want her to.

If it bothered her that _Mustn't stare at Seeker Pentaghast's legs_ was emblazoned on his other arm, she'd never given any sign.

"Truthfully," she continued, "I'm glad of the excuse for a little time to myself. Is there any chance of tempting you with something to eat?"

His stomach lurched horribly at the mere thought. "No, thank you. I'd appreciate some extra water next time, though. And I think I'm overdue a change of clothes." He pulled absently at his shirt, which bore the stains of numerous nosebleeds.

"I wasn't going to say anything." She got to her feet. "Does this mean you won't shut the door if I leave it open?"

"No, it doesn't. Would you light another candle?"

"You should try to get some more rest."

"Please, Cassandra." After a moment, his ears absorbed what had just come out of his mouth. "I'm sorry. Seeker."

She waved a hand, and reached for the stash of candles. "I don't think this is the time for formalities. I shouldn't interfere, anyway. You're obviously doing something right."

"I am?"

The Seeker regarded him closely, but not with one of her piercing looks; eyes half-closed, lips slightly parted, she put him in mind of a cat tasting the air. "Yes. You seem... lighter. As if some burden has been lifted."

"I do?"

"Am I wrong?" she asked, as she lit the fresh candle from the flame of the old one.

Was she?

"No," he said slowly. "You're not."

"Would you like to discuss it?"

"No. Thank you. I need to think." He was still trying to puzzle out what 'it' even was.

She straightened up, blew out the candle stub and tossed it onto the pile in the corner. "Until later, then."

"Bye," he muttered absently, as the door closed behind her.

Why did he feel different? _How_ did he feel different? There was a familiarity to it, but a very old one - a kind of... cleaned-out feeling he hadn't known since he was a boy, after...

After he'd had a good cry.

Was that it?

It was a long time since he'd permitted himself tears. Not since his parents had died...

 _No. Be honest. Not even then._

The memory was astonishingly clear. Sitting there with Mia's unusually terse letter in his hand. Trying to bring to mind his parents' faces, and getting only the tittering shades that had tormented him in the cage. Feeling only cold anger, everything else frozen in the depths, where nothing could use it to hurt him again. He'd put the letter away, gone to get his dinner and reported for the night shift without breaking stride.

And when time and lyrium had dulled the edge slightly, when he'd started to thaw... he'd been in Kirkwall, and there had been plenty of other things to think about. Convenient.

Maker. Ten years and he'd never grieved for the people who'd brought him into the world. That was... appalling.

But... what was it the illusory Meredith had said? _You should have been there to look after them._ That hadn't been the taunt of some demon. She'd been purely the creation of his own addled mind. It was absurd to suggest his parents' death had been his fault, yet the accusation had come from _him._ Had he been carrying that around for ten years without even knowing it? Was that part of the reason why he'd never mourned them, until now?

It could only be a part. With the worst of the physical symptoms receding, he was beginning to notice how much clearer his feelings and memories were. It was as if every dose of lyrium had wrapped his head up in a little bit more cloth, until he was blind and deaf and didn't even know it until the impediment was gone. He could picture Honnleath and his family in more detail than he had in years. The house. The village square, with its golem. The lake...

Suddenly he wanted to be there, with a craving that rivalled the call for lyrium, with a longing that froze him to the spot and tore the breath from his lungs. He pressed his palms to the mattress and concentrated. Breathe in. Out. In. Out. He reached under the mattress and pulled out the small leather pouch that contained the only possession he really cared about. Running his fingers over the coin's familiar pattern calmed him.

He looked around the small room. When he'd initially picked the place, he'd said – and believed – that he wanted to be free of distractions, but had that really been it? The more he thought about it, the more it seemed that he was punishing himself. Should he have done more to help root out the mages' corruption? Should he have done more to protect them? The fact that, even now, he couldn't answer either of those questions surely demonstrated that he'd spent six years in an increasingly impossible situation.

What if he had done something differently? Maybe he could have made things better. Or maybe he could have got himself killed, or reassigned, or otherwise not there to do the one thing he was sure he had done right - the act of defiance which had finally dragged the Knight-Commander's madness out into the light where none of the templars left in the Gallows could deny it. If not for that... what then? Could she have killed the Champion, got entrenched? Would the toll have risen even higher?

Absolution? A distant prospect, at best. Most of those he'd harmed were dead or tranquil. Still... First Enchanter Irving had been alive at last report, and if this peace conference came to be he'd surely be there. He'd been the soul of patience with the damaged, angry Cullen of ten years before; an apology for trying to get the Kinloch Hold survivors massacred would be a place to start.

Learning from his mistakes was one thing. But his use to the Seeker would be diminished if he was carrying around a weight of needless guilt and self-loathing. Maybe there was more than one kind of poison he needed to get out of his system.

He put the pouch away again, then gritted his teeth and hauled himself, muscle by shrieking muscle, off the mattress and onto one knee. Clasped his hands. Focussed on the flame.

"These truths the Maker has revealed to me:  
As there is but one world,  
One life, one death, there is  
But one god, and He is our Maker.  
They are sinners, who have given their love  
To false gods.

Magic... exists to serve man, and never to rule over him..."


	3. Lean On Me

Cullen was starting to think it had been too long since anyone had brought him water. He had no way to so much as tell day from night and he knew perfectly well that conditions such as these were likely to distort a person's sense of time; nonetheless, since Cassandra had gone away he had had the impression that her orders to deliver fresh water through the door's feeding slot twice a day were being followed faithfully, and with typical Seeker punctuality. Enough for him to have a feeling for the schedule.

It was possible, he supposed, that he'd simply been asleep and missed it; but his sleep had been light and nightmare-haunted lately, and so far the sound of the flask being replaced had reliably woken him up.

Maybe he should go over and check. He didn't feel like moving just yet, though. In truth, he'd been moving very little lately. Kneeling, reciting and staring at candles was out; lying on his side facing a wall he could not see was in. Every day or so he switched ends and lay on his other side. Currently he was on his right. He had a lot of thinking to do, chewing over his memories and newly-unsuppressed feelings. Since the dam had broken there had been quite a bit more weeping. For his family. For the colleagues and friends he'd lost. For the mages he'd harmed; deliberately, carelessly, or through inaction. For the many innocent dead in Kirkwall, and since. And maybe, just a little, for a man who had endured things nobody should have to endure, and still ended up thinking he hadn't suffered enough.

There had been times when he'd been unable to face Cassandra, and spent her visits huddled on the mattress with his back turned and his arms wrapped around his head, hoping she'd think he was asleep. He doubted she'd been fooled for a moment, but she'd left him alone. She was content as long as he surfaced often enough to assure her that his mind remained in passable working order. The one time she'd approached him had been after he'd finally given in and asked for a blanket. He'd been having one of his bad spells when she returned, and had expected her to just leave it and go; instead, she'd draped it over him. It had been oddly comforting, lying there with his eyes closed and pretending to be asleep while she... looked after him.

Maybe he should find someone else to look after him. Maybe he'd been keeping himself alone for too long. Cassandra herself was out of the question, of course. Too far above him. And scary. It had been hard, opening himself up enough to ask for her help with getting off lyrium. A year ago he probably wouldn't have managed it. Perhaps, if he worked at it, he'd be able to talk to women about... other things.

At any rate, when the word had arrived that the allies for whom she was waiting had run into some kind of trouble and she had needed to take her troops to find them, she'd been sufficiently confident in his resilience to let him stay put. She hadn't even pressed the food issue, just asked him to promise he'd start eating again when she got back, to give him a chance to recoup his strength for the onward journey. Until then, they'd agreed, as long as there was an empty flask by the door when the full ones were delivered, nobody would enter. If anyone could understand the benefits of isolation and fasting, it was a Seeker.

Only now there was something wrong. The conviction was settling steadily into him, bone-deep. Something to it, or paranoia and a cracking sense of time? He ought to get up and check on the flask. Whether it was full or empty, he clearly also ought to consider opening the door.

Footsteps. Too many. A voice, talking fast; a voice he knew. Varric?

Something was definitely wrong. He stirred, trying to work the kinks out of his back and legs. When, sure enough, the door opened, he squinted and kept his face to the wall to give his eyes time to adjust to the new light. He probably ought to be afraid, but strangely his overwhelming feeling was one of indignation. This place was his. It had been violated.

"What in flames is this?" snapped an unfamiliar male voice.

" _This_ ," Varric's voice responded, "is Ser Hugh, some kind of big shot with the breakaway templars back east. Owner of that armour you've been making such a fuss about. I hear he's very valuable to our captors alive and sane, utterly useless dead or mad, which is why the last of the lyrium in this place went down his throat over a week ago and everyone's off trying to get hold of more. In case I'm not being clear enough, there. Is. No. Lyrium. So how about the three of us get out of here and you let me hook you up?"

The dwarf was dancing fast, and Cullen had an idea most of that speech had been for his benefit. Two hostiles. Under the correct impression that Varric wasn't here of his own free will, and the hopefully incorrect impression that he was trying to help them. How had they got in? Where were the rest of Cassandra's people? _Who_ were they? He thought he could guess that last one for himself.

"The door wasn't locked."

"Does he look like he's going anywhere?"

"A renegade templar? He must have been getting it from somewhere before they took him."

"Don't you think he would've told them everything he knew about that when the shakes set in?"

"Maybe, maybe not. It's worth a try." There was a ragged edge of not-quite-concealed desperation to the voice, and Cullen was suddenly certain his guess had been right - these were former templars too. Addicts.

There was a heavy footstep close behind, and in his stomach a lurch of quite disproportionate revulsion at the thought of one of those... people touching him. He swiftly flipped himself over, and sat up with his back against the wall. It was an oddly good feeling to have his joints protesting their lengthy immobility, and not... anything else. There was one shadow looming over him, two others by the door.

"Pretty spry for a man a week out from his last lyrium," growled a new voice, a woman's. It sounded as if was coming from inside a helmet.

Cullen tried to speak, but all that came out was a harsh caw. He cleared his throat and rasped, "Nearly a month, actually."

"Horseshit. You'd be losing your mind by now."

"Wrong." He took a breath and forced himself to keep rattling on, hopefully distracting them from him getting to his feet. "I'm Knight-Commander Cullen, formerly of Kirkwall. I knew a man there who was expelled, and survived it. I don't know where this story came from that madness or death's inevitable. Maybe you should think about that before you do anything foolish."

" _You're_ Knight-Commander Cullen?" said the man. "What are you doing locked up down here?"

"As you pointed out, I'm not locked up. All of this is my choice."

 _My choice._ A simple truth, one he'd taken for granted, hit him like a bucket of water in the face. He hastily pushed the thought aside.

His vision was clearing up now. Varric was one of the figures by the door, stood watching him carefully. He twitched an eyebrow when their gazes met, but if there was a message there, Cullen couldn't decipher it. There was no sign of Bianca. The other two were humans - and were indeed in scored, shabby templar armour. The one by the door, the helmeted woman, had a bow strapped to her back and a candlestick in one hand. The man was thin and unshaven, with a days-old bruise on his forehead and a tic in his left eye.

Not that Cullen was a great example of abstinence, he had to admit. He wasn't certain whether he was unshaven, too, or had passed the tipping point into having an actual beard. He was days out from his last proper wash, a week from his last change of clothes and two from his last meal or sight of daylight. And he knew perfectly well a person couldn't stay in an enclosed space like this for a lengthy period without it getting kind of ripe.

Dammit, maybe he should have just let Varric keep talking.

"Look, we don't need to debate where the misinformation came from," he said, running his mouth to buy time to assess the situation. Two people in armour – and armed, although they'd have to use knives in these close quarters. They were debilitated from lack of lyrium, him from fasting. He could maybe take down one of them by himself. Maybe.

He shoved off the wall, stumbled forward and grabbed the man's breastplate, then hastily backed away again. "Sorry. Bit dizzy. Haven't eaten." He leaned against the wall again, eyeing the new configuration carefully. The man had backed up a step, the woman forward. They were blocking his view of Varric.

"You tried to get off without having a stash in reserve?" said the woman. "I don't think so."

"You're right. I entrusted it to someone. She's not here, and if you can't find it I'm not going to be able to."

"We haven't checked the other cells. Maybe she put it there."

"Maybe. Or maybe you could stop. I know it hurts, and I can tell you it's going to get worse but then it's going to get better. The hard part isn't the physical pain, it's the memories. What you've done. What you've witnessed. What's been done to you. All drowned in lyrium, but what does that really get you? A week ago I remembered my parents clearly for the first time in years.

"Look, we need good people, and you're obviously good, or you wouldn't have made it here. Whatever you've done, I can fix it. I can make them understand you didn't think you had a choice. If you stop now. Because you do have a choice."

He kept his eyes fixed on the man's. Was there some uncertainty there? What was the woman thinking, invisible inside her helmet?

It was too dark to read expressions with any precision, but it was clear enough when he reached for his knife. Cullen was fast enough to grab his wrist.

"Your _other_ choice," he said. "Is to still be at arms when Varric gets back."

Two heads swivelled, two bodies shifted, and Cullen could see he'd been right. The dwarf was gone.

He played the bluff as best he could. "You two are really off your game. He's been gone for for a while. He and Bianca won't have any trouble with you."

"There's nobody else in this place."

"There's Bianca. You really ought to stand down before you get introduced." He was starting to get a distinct sense of futility. He wasn't going to be able to talk them down. His body had been eating itself for two weeks; no matter their disadvantages, he couldn't take them in a fight. If Varric didn't come back – and why would he? – Cullen would die in this place. He'd been prepared for that, but not like this.

The man shoved him back against the wall with a force that knocked his breath out. The knife was drawn.

Cullen braced himself against the wall, planted a foot on an armoured thigh and shoved as hard as he could. The man stumbled backwards, knocking the woman over before he managed to right himself, just in time to get the blanket in his face.

It had gone better than expected so far. Only... the plan had been to break for the door, and apparently his legs hadn't received their orders. He grabbed the wall again, hoping the dizziness would pass quickly.

He saw the incoming fist in time to turn his head so that it glanced rather than connecting solidly, but it was still enough to destroy what balance he had left. An outflung arm to arrest his fall got him a painfully twisted wrist, and then there was a weight on top of him, a knife-tip inches from his face. He blocked as best he could, knowing his strength was failing, wondering if it was the Maker's will that he live just long enough to be free of the lyrium.

 _Fuck that._ The thought was startling in its passion, not to mention the profanity – he rarely cursed even inwardly. He'd prepared himself to not survive the withdrawal of lyrium, and now, out the other side and feeling everything so much more vividly than he had in years... he wanted to live. He really wanted it. It wasn't for him to know the Maker's will, so he was going to fight to his last breath.

It was taking him both hands to hold the knife back; when his assailant pinned one of his wrists, he felt steel at his throat almost at once.

There was a desperate, oddly reluctant ferocity in the man's eyes. His own heartbeat thundering in his ears, Cullen took a breath - his last? - and whispered, "You can still stop."

He was wrong. The downward pressure on the knife abruptly ceased and the grip on his wrist slackened. The light in the other man's eyes went dull; one started to slide closed, the other bulged out. Presumably the bolt - Cullen noticed flights protruding from the now-corpse's temple - was pushing on it. Then the head fell forward onto his shoulder. He pressed his lips together, turned his face to the wall and struggled futilely to shift the dead weight off him, panic rising at the thought of getting lyrium-tainted blood in his mouth, or into the fresh cut on his throat...

The load was yanked away. "You okay, Curly?"

Still facing the wall, he took a few calming breaths before turning to see Varric leaning over him.

"Gotta say, you _look_ terrible," the dwarf continued.

"Are there any more of them?"

"Just those two."

Cullen raised himself onto his elbows. "Then how in the Maker's name - what's going on upstairs?"

"Well. Curly. I guess you know the Seeker's been gone for a few days." When Varric spoke of _the_ Seeker, there was no need to ask which one. "She left enough people here to see off any roving troublemakers. A refugee family came by yesterday with a tale of some gang of renegade templars terrorising the roads, accusing all and sundry of being mages, blah blah blah, and good Ser Bernard decided to go after them. He took most everybody and headed out at dawn."

"How many?"

"About thirty. He left two guys behind. Both dead now." He indicated the female corpse. "That one there was a pretty good sniper."

Cullen sighed. If he hadn't been moping around down here... no. He'd just spent two weeks working through what guilt he deserved and what he didn't; this was no time to start taking on responsibility for someone else's mistake. "And you?"

"Locked me up in one of the nicer cells, upstairs." He looked around ostentatiously. "You really spent two weeks in here on purpose?"

"I could say similar to you. You couldn't get a door open?"

Varric shrugged. "We're in the middle of nowhere. Where am I going to go? Besides, at this point I think I'd rather just get it done than have the Seeker chasing me all over Thedas. So when our friends here found me, I managed to convince them to keep me alive on the basis that I had a contact who could get them some lyrium."

"Do you?"

"Not close enough. It was good you distracted them. Conning addicts is tricky – probably wouldn't have ended well if I'd had to leave with them."

"Well, if you hadn't come back, I'd be dead now. Thank you."

"What, you thought I'd leave you to die?"

"Not to put too fine a point on it, why didn't you?"

Varric chuckled. "You need a reason? How about, some bunch of idiots broke my home town and then headed for the hills – I mean, we had perfectly good reasons, but you were the one who got stuck with picking up the pieces. Also, I like you."

"Arguably, I was one of the idiots too."

"Take a thank-you when it's offered, Curly. You ready to get out of here?"

Looking at the two corpses – the latest lives to be wasted – he thought of the matching armour waiting for him upstairs. Once there had been a young man for whom donning it had been a dream come true; a dream now drowned in pain and anger, poisoned by cruelty, fanaticism and lies. And it _wasn't his fault._

He knew, now, he would never wear that armour again. He knew, now, it didn't mean his life or his usefulness was over. More than that, he _believed_ it now. He pulled the pouch with its single coin out from under the mattress and hung it around his neck. "Yes. I'm ready to leave." A wave of dizziness came over him again as he got to his feet.

"Easy does it. C'mon, lean on me."

"Thank you." A hand on the dwarf's broad shoulder, Cullen allowed himself to be steered out of the room.

It dawned on him that he was _starving._


End file.
